Jesus: The Way, the Truth, the Life

“Let not your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God’ believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I got to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.  And you know the way to where I am going.  Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?  Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.  From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.’”-John 14:1-4 (ESV).

I have just recently read a book entitled Jesus in the Present Tense:  The ‘I Am’ Statements of Christ by Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe (Colorado Springs:  David Cook, 2011).  I highly recommend the book as a good and insightful commentary on the “I Am” declarations of our Savior, namely “I am the Bread of Life,” “I am the Good Shepherd,” I am the Light of the World,”  “I am the Door,” “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” I am the True Vine,” and the one we will consider today, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.”  The premise of the “I Am…” statements of Jesus go back to when Moses asked at the burning bush when God called him to go to Egypt and be the deliverer of the Israelites in bondage, “Whom shall I say sent me?”  and God answered Moses, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14).  When Jesus came to reveal the Father and to do the work He came to do on earth, the Lord likewise said “I am…”  He followed the statement by giving several comparisons, all of which in some way have to do with the life of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus was revealing the Father in His life, His ministry and His teaching.  “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life” is a statement made the night Jesus was betrayed and just before His death on the cross.  He was eating the Passover Supper with His disciples in the Upper Room and He also instituted the symbolic Lord’s Supper which Christians observe as a memorial to Him and as a time of solemn self-examination and commitment.

Jesus told the disciples He was ‘going away.’  He meant His death, and although He had already spoken of how He would die, the disciples did not clearly understand ahead of time either the severity of that death or its meaning and implications.  He wanted them to know that He would be away preparing a place for them and that later He would return to receive them unto Himself.  How comforting has been this passage.  It probably is the most-read passage at funeral and memorial services because of the promise of Jesus to return to us and take us to a place of perfect rest which will be our eternal home.  What is the way to that place Jesus is preparing?  He said that He is theWay—not a way, not one way, but THE WAY.  He is the way to the Father.  And that way leads through the cross—which Jesus bore for us in His substitutionary death.  We accept the Way by believing that Jesus did what He said He would do, that He came to the world to fulfill God’s purpose for Him as the ultimate sacrifice for sin from the foundation of the world.  The statement “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life” is a three-in-one statement for each facet of it is tied together.  Jesus is the Way to the Father.  He is the Truth of the Father’s love and provision; He is the life for he conquered death to rise to a glorified life forever.  The concept bears all the wisdom of the ages and the weight of God’s love for humankind, but at the same time it can be understood well enough even by a child so that he can believe and accept the great truth.  Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, that Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life and summarized the truth in “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.” (Acts. 4:12, ESV).  Please bow your head and in all sincerity thank the Father for Jesus, the Way, the Truth, the Life who has showed us the way to Him.